Sacrifice In The Film Hero

The concept of individual sacrifice for the greater good, ‘our land’ and community is an ideal held high in many cultures and this is no different to Chinese culture, past and present. The movie Hero displays this concept during the time in which china was a handful of separate country-states, known as ‘the warring states period’. Although there are the ideals of ‘our land’ in the film there is also the fact that community and uniting china is not an ideal that is liked by all. To display this point the beginning of the film opens with the quote “people give their lives for many reasons. For Friendship, for love, for an ideal. And people kill for all the same reasons.”

A major part of the film is the retelling of how the character Nameless defeated the other assassins, Sky, Broken Sword and Flying Snow. The version of how Nameless killed is told three times. The first time by Nameless, the second the way the King believes it happened and in turn the truth. The importance of the first two versions of the story is that in the story told by …show more content…
Qin is developed as a character that would kill for his ideal; where as Nameless and Flying snow kill for love. Broken Sword is a character that developed to be of great importance, he is the one character who is understanding of sacrifices made for ideals, for the greater good, for love. His character is less understood until the film reaches its climax and the audience comes to understand who the characters are and their intentions. This extremely important as each character represents a different viewpoint on the ideal and how different people come to deal with the loss of family. The use of the retelling of the story is used to tell how the characters in the film view one another, for example how the King of Qin viewed Nameless and the other assigns’. So when the truth was reviled, Broken Sword’s personality and actions have more impact on the